We’re launching two of our biggest programs ever — because activists, artists, and everyone in between need more support to protect voters and voting during this crucial election season
Apply by June 30 for our new Fellowship and Action Accelerator
joyful vibrant safe powerful accessible inspiring irresistible
Not the words people often associate with voting, especially not in 2022: when there are staggering challenges to voters and those who support them all across the country. When it’s so hard for so many to cast their ballot and make their voices heard.
But we know voting can be all those things — and must be all those things, to mobilize at the mass scale we need this midterm cycle, to protect the basic freedoms the majority of Americans want, need, and deserve.
And we know how to help. Through our expansive Unstoppable Voters program, we’ve helped over 60 organizations and 400 individuals advance their work through training, community building, and campaign mentorship and support. We’ve enabled big wins, received national press, and reached over 2 million people nationwide with dynamic pro-voter projects that center joy, humor, and hope.
So this summer, we’re launching two programs for voters and their champions
Unstoppable Voters Fellowship
For people working at voting organizations across the country, to help infuse their efforts with creativity and innovation.
Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator
For mentorship and funding tied to specific creative, ambitious pro-voter campaigns. For activists, artists, or anyone in between, working in collaboration with a voting organization.
Read on to learn more about each opportunity, and apply by June 30.
Unstoppable Voters Fellowships
For staff members at voting organizations
Selected fellows will be trained extensively by the Center for Artistic Activism, whose workshop leaders have taught thousands of activists around the world how to use the powers of art to make their advocacy have more impact. Fellows will then work with their colleagues at their organizations, and with continued support from C4AA, to bring exceptional creativity and innovation to achieve their organizations’ vital pro-voter midterm goals.
Fellows will receive a stipend of $5,000, and creative actions they develop will be supported with up to $12,500.
Benefits to Fellows & their Organizations
Fellows will devote the equivalent of 1 work day/week towards the fellowship, over 5 months. Benefits include:
- Funding to support creative, innovative, and impactful pro-voter actions
- Each Fellow will receive a stipend of $5,000 (considered a supplement to regular salary).
- C4AA will support creative campaign costs up to $12,500 per organization.
- Training to develop ambitious, imaginative activism
- Fellows will receive extensive training in artistic activism.
- Fellows will learn skills to share with their colleagues across current and future work. C4AA can also co-lead organization-specific workshops with Fellows during the fellowship period, to further benefit pro-voting campaigns.
- Community through a cohort of leading pro-voting professionals
- Fellows will join a community of practitioners working across the country to protect voting and voters.
- The cohort will meet regularly to support each other, share successes, and overcome challenges together.
Don’t have a staff member you think is right for the fellowship, but know of someone in your community who could be perfect? We’re happy to consider this arrangement as well! Fill out the application below and tell us about it.
Timeline
The fellowship is 5 months, from August through December:
- June-July: Application period and Fellow selection. Deadline to apply: June 30. Fellows selected by: July 18.
- August-November: Fellowship begins and continues through midterm elections. The fellowship kicks off with a week-long, in-person training (COVID-allowing) led by C4AA’s expert trainers. Fellows then return to their organizations to bring increased creativity and innovation to their work.
- Fellows will have a designated artistic activism mentor and regular meetings with and access to C4AA leadership.
- Fellows will develop creative actions that will go through multiple rounds of prototyping and assessment, as guided by C4AA, to quantifiably determine what tactics are proving successful in advancing organizations’ objectives.
- The cohort of fellows will also meet regularly to share successes and challenges and help each others’ common goals.
- December: Fellows, their colleagues, and C4AA evaluate campaigns and the fellowship program overall.
Flagship Partner: Fair Count
Founded in 2019 by Stacey Abrams and anchored in Georgia, Fair Count works to build long-term power in communities that have been historically undercounted in the decennial census, underrepresented at the polls, and whose communities are often torn apart in redistricting.
We’ve previously worked with Fair Count, its exceptional president Dr. Jeanine Abrams McLean, and many of its staff through our Holistic Districts Hub, which supported fair districting leaders in Georgia and Wisconsin. Through the Unstoppable Voters Fellowship, we’re thrilled to be working again with Fair Count and their Volunteer Organizer Aileen Loy, as supported by McLean and Program Director Melva Steps.
Unstoppable Voters Action Accelerator
Support for creative pro-voting projects, led by activists, artists, or anyone in between, in collaboration with a voting organization
Already have exceptional ideas for creative, ambitious, pro-voter projects? We’re funding and mentoring up to 10 artistic activism campaigns in the lead-up to the midterm elections.
Applicants submit initial ideas for campaigns that identify a pro-voter objective, specific audience(s), and multiple impossible-seeming tactics for reaching them. Selected participants will then accelerate towards achieving their voting goals by refining their tactic ideas through our online artistic activism workshop and through one-on-one meetings with C4AA’s expert trainers and leadership. Refined projects will go through multiple rounds of prototyping and assessment before deployment, for maximum success.
Projects will be supported with up to $15,000.
Support Details & Timeline
Projects can be led by anyone but must be in partnership with at least one voting organization and in service of the organization’s voting work. Project leads will be contractors of C4AA—this is not a grant system but us contracting people to plan, implement, and promote creative activities in line with the mission of Unstoppable Voters: to protect the freedom to vote in the United States with creativity and innovation.
Projects will be supported with up to $15,000 in funding.
The timeline for projects is approximately 4 months, from August through November:
- June-July: Application period and project selection. Deadline to apply: June 30. Projects selected by: July 25.
- August-September: Project leads take part in our artistic activism workshop and meet with C4AA leaders to refine ideas.
- September-October: Projects are prototyped and tested, as guided by C4AA. Project leads meet together regularly to share successes and challenges and help each others’ common goals.
- October-November: Revised projects are implemented and evaluated.
Program Partners
And more to be announced soon!
Important things to know!
Applicants need not have any formal artistic background, but rather an interest in and commitment to trying wildly ambitious, creatively risk-taking, inventive ideas.
We welcome compelling applications from anywhere in the country and are most interested in supporting communities that have been hardest hit by anti-voter attacks.
The Center for Artistic Activism is a 501c3 nonprofit, and the work we support cannot advocate for or against any candidate running for office or otherwise work to influence an election.
Want to learn more?
We’ll be hosting an information and Q&A session on Wednesday, June 15, from 2-3pm ET. Register to join here.
What is Unstoppable Voters?
Through our expansive Unstoppable Voters program, we support creatively risk-taking, strategic, ambitious organizations, people, and projects that address urgent and specific anti-voter attacks. We provide training and community building for individuals and groups who are passionate about protecting the freedom to vote and bringing the needed innovation to that fight. And we provide funding and support to help manifest that innovation and bring real, measurable impact. To date, we’ve helped over 40 organizations and over 300 individuals make voting accessible, safe, joyful, powerful, and irresistible.
Apply Here
Submit a brief LOI through the form below by June 30. If you have any trouble with the application or questions, reach out to krystal@c4aa.org.
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